Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-cfpbc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-20T03:05:54.665Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The visual language of archaeology: a case study of the Neanderthals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Stephanie Moser*
Affiliation:
Department of Prehistoric and Historical Archaeology, Sydney University, Sydney NSW 2006, Australia

Extract

Two notable reconstructions of Neanderthal individuals are analysed in this perceptive study of the role of visual reconstructions in archaeological debate. The author concludes that such images are more than popular by-products of academic discussion, and play a crucial role in the construction of archaeological arguments.

Type
Papers
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1992

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Addingtoln, L.R. 1986. Lithic illustration: drawing flaked stone artifacts for publication. Chicago (IL): University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Adkins, L. & Adkins, R.A.. 1989. Archaeological illustration. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar
Arambourg, C. 1955 Sur l’attitude, en station verticale, des Néandertaliens, Comptes Rendus Hébdomadaire des Seances de I’Académie des Sciences série D 240: 804–6.Google Scholar
Archaeological Review from Cambridge. 1989. Issue Theme: Writing Archaeology. Volume 8 no. 2.Google Scholar
Augusta, J & Burian, Z.. 1960. Prehistoric man. London: Hamlyn.Google Scholar
Baker, F & Thomas, J.(ed.). 1990. Writing the past in the present. Lampeter: St David’s University College.Google Scholar
Bapty, I. & Yates, T. (ed.). 1990. Archaeology after structuralism. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Binford, L.R. 1983. In pursuit of the past. London: Thames & Hudson. Google Scholar
Boule, P.M. 1908. L’homme fossile de la Chapelleaux-Saints (Corréze), L’Anthropologie 19: 519–25; 20: 257-71.Google Scholar
Boule, P.M. 1911–1913. L’homme fossile de la Chapelle-aux-Saints, Annales de Paléontologie 6: 111–72; 7: 21-56, 85-192; 8: 1-70.Google Scholar
Boule, P.M. 1921. Les hommes fossiles: éléments de paléontologie humaine. Paris: Masson.Google Scholar
Boule, P.M. & Vallois, H.V. 1946. Les hommes fossiles. Paris: Masson.Google Scholar
Bowler, P.J. 1986. Theories of human evolution: a century of debate, 1844-1944. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Brace, C.L. 1962. Refocusing on the Neanderthal problem, American Anthropologist 64: 729–41.Google Scholar
Brace, C.L. 1964. The fate of the ‘classic’ Neanderthals: a consideration of hominid catastrophism, Current Anthropology 5: 343.Google Scholar
Brace, C.L. 1981. Tales of the phylogenetic woods: The evolution and significance of evolutionary trees, American Journal of Physical Anthropology 56: 411–29.Google Scholar
Breuil, H. 1949. Beyond the bounds of history: scenes from the Old Stone Age. London: P.R. Gawthorn.Google Scholar
Broom, R. 1938. A step nearer to the missing link? A fossil ape with ‘human’ teeth, Illustrated London News May: 308–11.Google Scholar
Burkitt, M. 1933. The Old Stone Age. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Google Scholar
Childe, V.G. 1936. Man makes himself. (4th edition, 1965.) London: Watts.Google Scholar
Cole, M.C. & Cole, F. 1940. The story of primitive man. Chicago (IL): University of Knowledge.Google Scholar
Conkey, M. 1991. Contexts of action, contexts for power: material culture and gender in the Magdalenian, in Gero, J.M. & Conkey, M.W. (ed.), Engendering archaeology: 5792. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Constable, G. 1973. The Neanderthals. New York (NY): Time Life Books. Emergence of Man SeriesGoogle Scholar
Cosgrove, D. & Daniels, S. (ed.). 1989. The iconography of landscape. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar
Dart, R.A. 1959. The ape-men toolmakers of a million years ago: South African Australopithecus –his life, habits and skills, Illustrated London News May: 798801.Google Scholar
Diamond, J. 1989 The great leap forward, Discover 10: 50-60.Google Scholar
Drury, P.J. (ed.). 1982. Structural reconstruction: approaches to the interpretation of the excavated remains of buildings. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports. International series 110.Google Scholar
Figuier, L. 1865. The world before the deluge. London: D. Appleton.Google Scholar
Gamble, C. Forthcoming. Figures of fun: theories about cavemen, Archaeological Review from Cambridge. Google Scholar
Gerasimov, M.M. 1971. The face finder. New York (NY): J.B. Lippincott.Google Scholar
Gilbert, G,N & Mulkay, M. 1984. Opening Pandora’s box: a sociologica] anaiysis of scientists’ discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Google Scholar
Gould, S.J. 1989. Wonderful life: the Burgess Shale and the nature of history. London: Penguin.Google Scholar
Haeckel, E.H. 1876. The history of creation. London: Murray.Google Scholar
Hammond, M. 1979. A framework of plausibility for an anthropological forgery: the Piltdown case, Anthropology 3: 4758.Google Scholar
Hammond, M. 1982. The expulsion of the Neanderthals from human ancestry: Marcellin Boule and the social context of scientific research, Social Studies of Science 12: 136.Google Scholar
Haraway, D. 1989. Primate visions: gender, race and nature in the world of modern science. New York (NY): Routledge. Google Scholar
Hodder, I. 1989a. Writing archaeology: site reports in context, Antiquity 63: 268–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hodder, I. 1989b. This is not an article about material culture as text, Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 8: 250–69.Google Scholar
Hodder, I. 1991. Reading the past. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2nd edition.Google Scholar
Honore, F. 1909 Le crane du plus vieil ancètre connude l’humanité, L’Illustration 3443: 125–9.Google Scholar
Howell, F.C. 1965. Early man. New York (NY): Time Life Books.Google Scholar
Hrdlička, A. 1914. The most ancient skeletal remains of man, Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution: 491552.Google Scholar
Hrdlička, A. 1927. The Neanderthal phase of man, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 56: 249–74.Google Scholar
Hutchinson, H.N. 1896. Prehistoric man and beast. London: Smith, Elder.Google Scholar
Johanson, D.C. 1976. Ethiopia yields first ‘family’ of early man, National Geographic 150: 790811.Google Scholar
Keith, A. 1911a. The man of half a million years ago not in the ‘Gorilla’ stage. A belief disproved, Illustrated London News May: 778–9.Google Scholar
Keith, A. 1911b. Ancient types of man. London: Harper&Brothers.Google Scholar
Keith, A. 1912a. President’s address: The reconstruction of fossil human skulls, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 44: 1231.Google Scholar
Keith, A. 1912b. The relationship of Neanderthal man and Pithecanthropus to Modern man, Man 12(89): 155–6.Google Scholar
Keith, A. 1913a. The human skull etc., from Piltdown, discussion, Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society 69: 148.Google Scholar
Keith, A. 1913b. The Piltdown skull and brain cast, Nature 92: 197–9, 292, 345-6.Google Scholar
Keith, A. 1915. The antiquity of man. London: Williams & Norgate.Google Scholar
Keith, A. 1925a. The antiquity of man. London: Williams&Norgate.Google Scholar
Keith, A. 1925b. When Malta was part of the Eur-African land-bridge: a prehistoric big-game drive, Illustrated London News February: 349–51.Google Scholar
Keith, A. 1946. Essays on human evolution. London: Watts.Google Scholar
Keith, A. 1949. A new theory of human evolution. London: Watts.Google Scholar
Keith, A. 1950. An autobiography. New York (NY): Philosophical Library.Google Scholar
Knight, C.R. 1942. Parade of life through the ages, National Geographic 81(2): 141–84.Google Scholar
Kurth, C. 1958. Betrachen zu Rekonstruktionsversuchen, in von Koenigswald, G.H.R (ed.), Hundert Jahre Neanderthaler 1856-1956: 217–30. Bonn: Bonner Jahrbuch.Google Scholar
Landau, M. 1984. Human evolution as narrative, American Scientist 72: 262–8.Google Scholar
Landau, M. 1986. Trespassing in scientific narrative: Grafton Elliot Smith and the Temple of Doom, in Sarbin, T.R (ed.), Narrative psychology: 4564. New York (NY): Praeger.Google Scholar
Landau, M. 1991. Narratives of human evolution. New Haven (CT): Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Leakey, L.S.B. 1946. A pre-historian’s paradise in Africa: Early Stone Age sites at Olorgesailie, Illustrated London News October: 382–5.Google Scholar
Leakey, M.D. 1979. Footprints in the ashes of time, National Geographic 155: 446–57.Google Scholar
Leakey, R. 1981. The making of mankind. New York (NY): Dutton Google Scholar
Lynch, M & Woolgar, S. (ed.). 1990. Representation in scientific practice. Cambridge (MA): MIT Press.Google Scholar
Moser, S. 1989. A history of reconstructions. Unpublished B.A. thesis. Department of Archaeology, La Trobe University, Melbourne.Google Scholar
Moser, S. 1992. Visions of the Australian Pleistocene: prehistoric life at Lake Mungo and Kutikina Cave, Australian Archaeology 35.Google Scholar
Moser, S.In press. Gender stereotyping in pictorial reconstructions of human origins, in du Cros, H. & Smith, L. (ed.), Women in archaeology: a feminist critique. Canberra: ANU Press.Google Scholar
Nesturkh, M. 1959 The origin of man. Moscow: Progress Publishers.Google Scholar
Osborn, M.F. 1915. Men of the Old Stone Age. New York (NY): Scribner.Google Scholar
Piggott, S. 1965. Archaeological draughtsmanship: principles and practice. Part 1: Principles and retrospect, Antiquity 39: 165–76.Google Scholar
Piggott, S. 1978. Antiquity depicted: aspects of archaeological illustration. London: Thames & Hudson.Google Scholar
Quennell, M. & Quennell, C.H.B. 1921. Everyday life in the Old Stone Age. London: Batsford.Google Scholar
Reichart, L. 1909. The most important anthropological discovery for fifty years, Illustrated London News February: 300–13.Google Scholar
Rensberger, B. 1981. Facing the past, Science 81 October: 4051.Google Scholar
Rudwick, M.J.S. 1976. The emergence of a visual language for geological science 1760-1840, History of Science 14: 149–95.Google Scholar
Rudwick, M.J.S. 1988. Encounters with Adam, or at least the hyenas: 19th-century visual representation of the deep visual past, in Moore, J.R. (ed). History, humanity and evolution: 231–51. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Smith, G.E. 1924. The evolution of man. London: Humphrey Milford, Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Smith, W.G. 1894. Man the primeval savage. London: Edward Stanford.Google Scholar
Sorrell, A. 1981. The artist and reconstruction, in Sorrell, M. (ed.), Reconstructing the past: 2026. London: Batsford Academic & Educational.Google Scholar
Spencer, F. 1979. Hrdlitčka Ales, M.D.,1869-1943: A chronicle of the life and work of an American physical anthropologist. Ph.D dissertation. Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (MI).Google Scholar
Spencer, F & Smith, F.H. 1981. The significance of Ales Hrdlitčka’s ‘Neanderthal Phase of Man’: a historical and current assessment, American Journal of Physical Anthropology 56: 435–59.Google Scholar
Straus, W.L & Cave, A.J.E 1957. Pathology and the posture of Neanderthal man, Quarterly Review of Biology 32: 348–63.Google Scholar
Terrell, J. 1990. Storytelling and prehistory, in Schiffer, M.B. (ed.), Archaeological Method and Theory 2. Tucson (AZ): University of Arizona Press.Google Scholar
Tilley, C 1991. Material culture and text: the art of ambiguity. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Trinkaus, E. 1982. A history of Homo-erectus and Homo sapiens paleontology in America, in Spencer, F. (ed.), A history of American physical anthropology 1930-1980: 261–80. New York (NY): Academic Press.Google Scholar